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Touching the Future–A Grandfather’s Bequest: amanuensis monday

[Author’s Note: As any parent knows, shooing kids into adulthood requires a balancing of priorities. While securing one’s own home and finances, you also strive to secure a promising future for your children. We pay for health insurance, cover education costs, loan cash for car payments, and extend a bit of mad money whenever possible–as long as we don’t leave ourselves bankrupt and unable to manage our dotage. John Pearson (Pierson) Minor and his wife, Isabela McClelland, of Greene County, Pennsylvania were no exceptions. These parents accomplished this tricky balancing act by serving as their family’s private bankers, lending money and holding the mortgages on land in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio. For cattle dealers and farmers in the first half of the 19th century, securing land was the ticket to securing a child’s good future; the means by which a young man/woman could become a self-sufficient, productive member of society. This transcription continues a cascade of posts in which I will share the notes, mortgages and letters that record the helping hand extended to John’s eldest children, Robert and Abia, the two boys by his first marriage to Hannah McClelland.]

In the last post we were introduced to a piece of land in Harrison County, Virginia. In 1849 John and Isabella were prepared to deed this land to the brothers, Abia (a- bye-ya) and Robert, in exchange for title to land that the boys had inherited from their grandfather, Robert McClelland. This un-executed deed serves as a keystone document from which we will jump back into time.

Abia and Robert Became Landowners

A will would be nice, but the 1849 document will have to suffice. It states that “their share of a tract of land will,d to them the said Abia and Robert Minor by Robert McClelland deceased” is accepted as payment for the “Wilson Land” in Harrison County. When did they first become landowners? At the time of their grandfather’s death. When did Robert McClelland die? I do have a document to narrow the timeframe.

In the Orphans Court of Green County at June Term 1834

And now June 11th 1834 an notice of the Court grant a Rule upon the heirs and legal Representatives of Robert McClelland deceased to be and appear at an orphans Court when held at Waynesburgh in and for said County on the third Monday of September next and accept or refute the real estate of said decedent at the valuation there of or shuo (show) county why the same shall ???? sold.

The smudge in the lower left corner, when held just right in great light, revealed an embossed Seal of the County Greene. Inscribed on the note’s exterior were the words–

March Term 1833 Order upon the H????? of Robt McClelland, dec’d

It would appear then from this Orphans Court decree that Robert McClelland died after the court met in 1832 but before the March Term in 1833. The will must have stipulated that a tract of land be divided among his children, and among grandchildren if the child was deceased. This grandfather’s bequest secured a bit of future for a 17 year old Abia and 15 year old Robert. For whatever reason the young men chose to begin adulthood on the Wilson Land, using their inheritance as collateral.

Our next transcription will uncover how John P. Minor acquired the Wilson Land of Harrison County.